


Petite Suite

by androktasia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Look I Know, Misunderstandings, University, but give it a shot, mangodole, nardole puts a mango on his head, two gremlins committing small crimes together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androktasia/pseuds/androktasia
Summary: The Doctor encourages Nardole to visit Missy and keep her company.It goes about as well as could be expected.--The Doctor pats him on the hand. “Just – go and see her,” he says, “and talk to her. You know,” he grins wildly, an incongruous look on his normally frowny face, “perhaps you could make some music together.”Nardole gasps. Theaudacity.“Get to know her.”Nardole shakes his head vigorously, feeling his cheeks wobble as he does. “Sir, this is deeply inappropriate. You can’t ask me to do this. It must violate every HR directive in the book.” Is the Doctor really asking him to sacrifice his virtue? Tothat woman? He draws himself together. “It’s immoral.”“Nardole,” the Doctor cajoles, “she just needs some enrichment.”
Relationships: Missy/Nardole (Doctor Who), Twelfth Doctor & Nardole, Twelfth Doctor/Missy (Implied)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Petite Suite

**Author's Note:**

> So this is almost entirely Quinn's fault. She wrote the first few paragraphs and gave it to me (communism in action) and came up with some of the funniest ideas. Her AO3 is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjodieyet/pseuds/notjodieyet)!
> 
> Title is named after the [Petite Suite for Four Hands](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDYZT8YcnTE&ab_channel=Anastasia%26LiubovGromoglasova), by Debussy, because there's a lot of talking about duets in this fic, and ... well. The Vault is sort of a Petite Suite, yeah? I like to think I'm funny.
> 
> \--
> 
> Content warnings at the end, if you need.

“I want you to spend more time with Missy.”

Nardole looks up from his tea – chamomile, six sugars, tartan mug – and wonders if there is a particularly large buildup of wax in his ears. They’re sat side by side in the Faculty lounge, on a plush sofa that’s so soft and deep that Nardole’s knees are almost to his chin, chiefly because the Doctor is for once eschewing the recesses of his office to mix with his colleagues. 

Not that he’s talking to them, of course. But he’d said, “ _It’s important to show your face every so often, Nardole_ , _so that they know not to cross you_ ,” and Nardole had politely refrained from pointing out that _he_ knew the Doctor was just avoiding the students trying to come and see him during his posted office hours.

He laughs. “Fifteen minutes until your morning lecture, sir.” 

The Doctor leans forwards until his nose is a short space from Nardole’s, and Nardole doesn’t move away, even though something tightens in his chest that should probably be examined later. “Now that I’ve started taking Bill on trips more often…”

“Which you really shouldn’t be doing,” Nardole interrupts.

“…I don’t have the time to visit our friend in the Vault as often as she’s used to.”

Nardole bites back a remark about how the Doctor really shouldn’t visit Missy as much as he does as it is. “Sir,” he starts cautiously. Since when would Missy want _Nardole’s_ company anyway? “I’m not sure –” 

“She’ll get lonely.” 

“ _Lonely –!_ ” he splutters. “She’s a mass murderer!”

The Doctor waves a hand at him. “Aren’t we all.” He leans in again. “My point is,” and he jabs with his finger to emphasise his point, “she’s used to a certain level of intimacy, of which I am no longer able to provide.”

Nardole blinks rapidly, shock flooding through his veins. His voice sticks in his throat. “What,” he squeaks. 

“I need you to fill that shortfall.”

“ _What!_ ”

Someone turns his head at his – Professor Fitzgerald, Art Department, Nardole thinks – and gives them a snotty look. A separate part of Nardole’s brain, the part that isn’t currently short-circuiting, files that snotty look for further reflection, considers adding him to Nardole’s shit-list. Nardole doesn’t have any plans for the people on his shit-list yet, but he finds a great deal of comfort in compiling it.

The Doctor pats him on the hand. “Just – go and see her,” he says, “and talk to her. You know,” he grins wildly, an incongruous look on his normally frowny face, “perhaps you could make some music together.” 

Nardole gasps. The _audacity._

“Get to know her.”

Nardole shakes his head vigorously, feeling his cheeks wobble as he does. “Sir, this is deeply inappropriate. You can’t ask me to do this. It must violate every HR directive in the book.” Is the Doctor really asking him to _sacrifice his virtue_? To _that woman_? He draws himself together. “It’s immoral.”

“Nardole,” the Doctor cajoles, “she just needs some enrichment.”

This time, it’s Nardole that leans in, his face scrunching up as he hisses, “She’s not a zoo animal.”

The Doctor draws back. “Of course she’s not,” he says in an entirely reasonable tone. “She’s a person. I wouldn’t ask you to _play music_ with a zoo animal.”

 _This metaphor is ridiculous,_ Nardole thinks mutinously. Is that what they get up to every time he slips off down to the Vault on his own? Just. _Duetting_? Against every wall in the Vault, probably. And on the floor and in the chairs and on top of the piano. Ugh.

“Anyway,” the Doctor carries on, “I won’t hear another word against it.” He stands, raising a thick, angry eyebrow. “Just do it.”

Nardole heaves a heavy sigh, accepts his fate. “Okay,” he says miserably. 

The Doctor gives him a brief, satisfied nod, as though to say, _well, that’s sorted_ , and walks off, ignoring the curious looks of his various colleagues. 

Nardole just looks into his tea, takes a big swig and winces. Not sweet enough. 

*

That went rather well, the Doctor thinks to himself as he brushes past – oh, someone, he’s useless at remembering names – on his way back to his office. He’s got to swing by and pick up the latest wad of marked essays from his desk, to chuck at all the children as they walk into the lecture hall.

It’s well past the time advertised on the website for students to come and see him, so he should be safe from the endless wave of them that _want_ things from him, at least. Help on the latest essay he’d set, to be their advisor, or supervise their dissertation, or – worst of all – those who want to talk at him about some personal drama. _Dump him_ , is always his advice to that. It seems to work most of the time.

No, the best place to be in a university is exactly where you aren’t expected to be. He frowns. Unless he’s giving a lecture. Those are important. And fun!

Nardole has perhaps worked out his clever scheme, given the way his nose had screwed up in disapproval and his eyes had narrowed into slits earlier this afternoon, when the Doctor had slid his way into the Faculty Lounge and occupied himself with making a large cup of Horlicks. 

He’d made some comments before as well, thinking himself surreptitious, the big buffoon. “ _Perhaps it’s a good thing the students trust you?_ ” he had offered once, and the Doctor had said, “ _No_ ,” hoping that would be the end of it.

Bill, who was draped over the TARDIS console, pressing all sorts of buttons with her elbows that should really only be pressed in emergencies, had shrugged her shoulders and shaken out her hair. “ _I don't get what the big deal is, you tutor me_.”

The Doctor had said, through gritted teeth, “ _But you're interesting,_ ” and she had laughed, bending over at the waist and pressing her hands into her stomach, and Nardole had given up.

The point was, the point was – he has accomplished something today. He’s escaped the endless press of pointless questions from his drivelling students, and instead only had to cope with Nardole’s pointless questions. And, furthermore, with Nardole agreeing to take up the mantle of socialising his dear companion in the Vault, filling up her evenings, he would have far more time to take Bill on the adventures she craves. That they _both_ crave.

The other two are perfect for each other, really, he muses. Their favourite pastimes are drinking tea and bitching to him about his life choices. What more could they need?

*

“Cooee,” Nardole calls, opening the door to the Vault. He shuffles in and shuts it again pronto.

 _She_. Her. Missy, if he must. She’s – well. Sitting on a plush armchair, reading – or pretending to read while coming up with more wicked schemes, probably. That’s possible. Nardole presses his lips together and comes to a stop in front of her, sucking his teeth. 

She raises an eyebrow. They stare at each other.

Nardole can feel the rising tension buzzing above his skin like insects. All the words he had imagined saying, before he walked in, the sentences he had carefully rehearsed in his head, the cutting rebukes to insults she hadn’t even come up with yet – they fly out of his mind, and all he can do is stare at the gentle wave of her hair, pinned into soft curls on the top of her head, and blink angrily.

“What,” Missy says, eventually, spitting the words out like a cobra, “do you want?”

Nardole harrumphs. “I am here,” he says, and stops. Chews on his lips. “To.” He can’t say it. He wrings his hands together.

She purses her mouth at him, and he eyes it, nostrils flaring, taking in the gentle wrinkle of her skin and the sharp, crisp red paint that covers it. _Why are you wearing that_ , he thinks, _when you didn’t know I was coming?_ “You are certainly here,” she says. “To – what?”

He swallows. “To keep you company.” 

That surprises her. She recoils slightly, instinctively – not one of her careful, curated movements, Nardole thinks. 

“And why would I need your company?” she says. 

“The Doctor thinks you’re lonely,” Nardole says miserably, “That you need a companion.”

“‘Companion’,” Missy says, distaste dripping from her tongue. “You?”

He nods.

“And what exactly does he expect me to do with you?”

“He told me to come and, and,” Nardole screws his mouth up, gathers all his courage, “‘make music’ with you.” He does the quotation marks with his fingers. 

At this, Missy’s eyes widen, an almost imperceptible amount. She scans him head to toe, lingering on his clenching fingers and his downturned mouth. Then she leans back, letting a wicked smirk take over her face. “Ah,” she nods knowingly. 

“So,” Nardole says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “here I am.”

“Here you are,” Missy agrees. “Well, I don’t think I want to play anything with you today,” she says, contemplatively. “I’ve been on the piano all day and my fingers are tired!”

Nardole hides his gag, turning away and covering his mouth, pretending to cough. “I see,” he says after a moment, sensing an out. “Well, I’ll be off then, I suppose. Toodle-oo!” And he makes to leave.

“No,” she snaps. “Come back.”

He trundles back to his spot in front of her. She’s opened her legs now and is reclining in her seat, running a finger over her lips. It’s very provocative. Nardole fixes his eyes on the wall behind her head.

“The Doctor thinks that I’m lonely, did you say?” He nods and she sniffs. “And his solution then, is to send his manservant to play sweet duets with me.” He nods again. “While he and his other –” she waves her hand effusively – “pet – swan off and explore the universe.”

Nardole frowns. “I suppose so.”

Missy draws herself to her feet suddenly, sweepingly elegant, and grabs his wrist. He tries to tug it away but she uses it to pull him to her, until they are nose to nose. She is stood on her tiptoes, he notes vaguely. “You know what this means,” she says, and he shakes his head. “We are going to have our own adventures!” she pronounces, and twirls around, ducking under his arm.

“No?” he tries.

“Oh?”

“No,” he says again, aiming for a more assertive tone. “You’re not allowed to leave the Vault.”

“Look,” she says, fishing a lipstick out of – somewhere. She’s let go of his arm. “It’s adventures, or,” she eyes him as she pops the top off the lipstick and twists it up slowly. Nardole swallows. She twists it down and up again a few times for good measure, before smearing it over her mouth, not breaking his gaze for one second. “Something else,” she finishes, and pops her lips together.

“Adventures then,” he croaks. 

“Fab!” she simpers. “Let me just grab my umbrella.”

Nardole has to try and claw back some control somehow. “Right,” he says loudly, as she flitters around the Vault, picking up things and putting them down again, “we’ll just go for a walk around the university, shall we?”

“Mm,” she throws over her shoulder. 

“And then we’ll come back here,” he adds. He has to say it.

Missy flutters back up to him, clutching an umbrella under her arm. He’s fairly sure she’s tucked some other things into her outfit as well, but he can’t see anything to say something about it. “Where are Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”

“Who –?” Nardole frowns.

She rolls her eyes, rocking back on her heels. “The Doctor and – and –” She gesticulates a little with her hands.

“Bill.”

“Sure.”

“I thought I was Tweedledum,” he says.

She looks him up and down. “Well, you’ve certainly got the figure for it.”

“Thank you,” Nardole preens. 

“So, where are they?”

Nardole hums. “I think Bill is at work. So we should avoid the cafeteria. And the Doctor is in a lecture.”

“Lovely,” she says, and drags him to the door. “We can pop by and say hello. Listen to his dulcet tones as he lectures the youth about –” she breaks off and eyes him. “Science? Philosophy?”

“Yes, those,” Nardole agrees. He looks at the door. This is probably a very bad idea. Definitely a very bad idea, actually. But better than the alternative? “The Doctor can’t find out about this,” he says severely. 

“Oh no, of course not.”

“We’ll need to be very discreet.” 

“Absolutely.”

“And careful.”

“Careful is my middle name.”

Nardole blinks, not looking at her. She tucks her arm into the crook of his elbow and he cringes away slightly. It doesn’t deter her, though. She just clings on harder.

“Okay then,” he says, and opens the door. 

He carefully doesn’t watch her face as they climb the stairs and step outside into the sunlight, but he sees out of the corner of his eye how she closes her eyes, for the briefest of moments. Hears how her breath hitches, just a smidge. Feels the taut muscles of her arm in his own clench, before she pulls away from him entirely.

“Oi,” he says before he can stop himself, and grabs her shoulder to drag her back to him again. “No wandering off.”

“Oh, Nardie,” she huffs, wrapping her arm around his waist, “if you wanted to touch me, all you had to do was ask.”

Nardole blusters. “That’s – that’s not. What I. Hm.”

“Come _on_ , dear,” she says, and starts dragging him to the main building of the university. It’s almost exam week, so the students they pass look more haggard than usual. Nardole feels a distant sort of horror creeping down his spine as he takes in their surprised faces at the sight of the two of them. Usually, they’re so self-absorbed by this point that they wouldn’t even notice a naked conga line passing them by, as long as it didn’t get in the way of the library.

Missy notices his consternation. “They’re admiring my beauty,” she tells him.

Nardole bites his tongue to stop himself retorting, _If they’re admiring any beauty it would be mine_ , because that would be childish and – also probably wasn’t true, if he was honest. Not that he wants them to admire him. They’re children, practically. 

“Right,” he says, keeping his tone light and vague, in a way that he knows the Doctor despises. At the flare of her nostrils, he senses it irritates Missy as well, and he cherishes the feeling of hot satisfaction that curls up in his stomach at that. He is in fact, so preoccupied with congratulating himself that he fails to notice where she’s leading him until they’re already there.

“No,” he says.

“We’re already here!” Missy tells him sweetly, dragging him into the lecture hall.

“You’re not serious! He’ll see us,” Nardole hisses.

Missy tugs him along by the elbow up the stairs, and they slip into the bench at the very back of the hall. 

“No,” Nardole moans. The Doctor was going to murder him. “He’ll see us,” he repeats.

“Don’t be silly, dear,” Missy says, and resolutely pulls pins out of her hair until it cascades around her face. “Give me your jacket.” Nardole turns his head and stares at her. She gestures impatiently. “As a disguise. I’m going to pull up that horrible hood and lounge about like a vagrant.”

“Student,” he corrects, and starts tugging his arms out of his sleeves.

“Same thing.”

With his jacket on, hood pulled up, hair loose and gently curling around her face, she looks almost unrecognisable. Her signature long skirts are hidden by the desk in front of them, and she’s slouching, face resting on her hand. She looks nothing like herself.

She notices him looking. “I’m a veritable _master_ of disguise, darling,” she leers.

He snorts despite himself, and then feels somewhat discontent.

That’s when the Doctor walks in and starts talking about incomplete dominance in gene variants. Nardole slumps his head on the desk and lets himself tune him out. He hears enough of the Doctor’s lectures as it is, even though the ones directed at him are usually about how irritating his fashion choices are. 

Missy though, Missy is gazing at the Doctor like he’s the sun.

When the lecture’s over, the two of them wait until the Doctor has left the room in a sweep of his coat before heading out of the hall and back onto the grounds. Missy is still wearing Nardole’s jacket, but he feels too out-of-sorts to ask for it back, so accepts it as a casualty of war.

He delivers her back to the Vault. She stands, framed by the door, and gives him a look he can’t read.

Nardole squirms, slightly. “Guess I’ll be back later, then,” he offers.

“Will you?”

He sighs. “Mm. We can go outside again, if you like.”

Missy pierces him with her gaze for a long moment, and he stands, waiting for her response. “Alright,” she says, eventually.

Nardole nods, shuts the door, double checks that it’s locked. “Yeah,” he mutters to himself. “Alright.”

*

“So, we’ve discovered that there is a lack of uniformity in the use of the terms ‘recessive’ and ‘dominant’ in genetic literature,” the Doctor exposits, prowling around at the front of the stage. He claps his hands together in front of his microphone, just to watch all the bored ones jump. This lot are an odd bunch though – most of them are actually listening, the losers. His eyes are travelling the room as he speaks. “And that the term ‘recessive’ is applicable when the hybrid varied from identity with the pure susceptible – or _complete_ recessivity – to somewhat less than halfway between pure susceptible and pure resistant. The term ‘dominant’ –” he breaks off, gives a little cough. 

His eyes tend to wander across the room when he’s lecturing, mostly because he could talk about this in his sleep. After seventy years, all the students’ faces tend to blur into one, and he rarely remembers any of them by sight alone. But today there are two people at the back of the room that look familiar. One of them’s bald, shining head had caught his attention – it almost looked like Nardole, but Nardole hasn’t been seen without that godawful jacket this entire semester, so it can’t be – but it’s the other one that gave him reason to pause. He fiddles with his clicker, pretending he can’t get the PowerPoint to move on – “Ah, sorry –” he says, and pretends to press the button again. 

Really, he’s watching the woman next to the bald one. She’s got long, chestnut hair, and is draped in a fashionable hoodie that hides the top half of her face in shadow. But her painted lips can be seen, and bright blue beady eyes shine out from beneath the hood. She looks like – 

But it can’t be. Nardole would never let her out, and if she got out she wouldn’t want to come and watch him teach basic science to the firsties.

So he shakes himself off and lets himself continue, finally pressing the button on the clicker properly and moving onto a slide of an illustrated Punnett square and a clipart of a little spaniel. 

“Dogs!” he shouts, and smiles to himself in satisfaction as one person startles so hard she hits her chin on her laptop.

The eyes of the woman at the back of the hall burn as he finishes his lecture.

*

“Let’s commit a crime,” Missy says one day, on one of their scheduled walks around the university grounds. Nardole has found these increasingly comfortable, the prickling tension in his gut decreasing a little every time. She doesn’t do much, apart from make catty remarks under her breath and bare her teeth at unsuspecting first years. One of them had cried. Nardole had watched him scurry off, hands over his face, and felt a sensation that should have been guilt, or empathy perhaps, but was actually neither.

This latest proclamation provokes only alarm though. “No!” he squeaks.

“Just a little one,” she coaxes, “just to take the edge off.”

He shakes his head. “No,” he says, more firmly this time. 

Missy pouts, tilting her head and doing an exaggerated slump. “But I’ve been so _good_ ,” she says. “I’ve not killed anyone in ages.”

“That’s –” Nardole fumes. “Most people don’t need congratulations for not committing murder.”

She crosses her arms. “I’m the one being rehabilitated, here, don’t I get a say?”

“No.”

“Look,” she says, and reaches out for his hand. He tugs it away from her, feeling petulant, but her grip is too firm, nails digging into the meat of his palm. “Look,” she says again. “Let’s just go in here and see where the mood takes us.”

‘Here’ was the Art Department, and Nardole sighs. He’s going to give in. He always does. “Fine,” he mutters. “I suppose it might be cultural.” Cultural is one word for it. He’s really just trying to keep her entertained before she thinks to ask for anything more… salacious. 

The Art Department building is one of the newest in the university, but set apart from the main campus. Nardole has heard discontent whisperings from various Humanities students across the years that only the STEM students get to have lectures in any of the fancy buildings, while they were relegated to horrid sixties concrete blocks. “ _How am I meant to get inspired_ ,” one of them had muttered, “ _when I am surrounded by this literal antithesis of beauty?_ ” His friend had said in a thick Slavic accent, “ _It is not too bad_ ,” which Nardole had found quite funny. Nardole didn’t mind the buildings himself. They reminded him of the city reefs back home. 

He lets himself get dragged up to the front door and gamely presses his keycard to the pad that lets them in. 

“Let’s see the exhibits, then,” Missy says.

“I don’t think it works like that,” Nardole mutters, but he’s already being led up the stairs to the studios on the second floor. He doesn’t let himself think about how Missy already knows where to go.

As they emerge out of the stairwell, Nardole curls up his lip as he spots the name plaque on the door to the office. “What’s that face for?” Missy says immediately.

“What face?”

“Your face is doing something unpleasant.”

Nardole huffs. “You always think that.”

“Well it’s extra unpleasant now.”

He scowls at her. “I just don’t like Fitzgerald.”

“Who?” she says. And then, “Actually, I don’t care.”

“He’s the professor,” Nardole explains. “He’s on my shitlist.”

This gets her attention, to Nardole’s alarm. “Your what?”

“Never mind,” he says hurriedly. “Doesn’t matter. Studio this way.” He walks past Fitzgerald’s office and pushes through the double doors to the students’ workshop.

He gazes around curiously. He’s not been and peeked at all the third years’ final projects yet this year. One of his favourite pastimes – when _alone_ – is trying to interpret what they are all meant to mean. He usually goes for ‘capitalism’ or ‘death’. 

The first thing his eyes are drawn to is a to-scale sculpture of a sad clown, which is frighteningly realistic. He separates himself from Missy and goes to peer at it. It’s taller than him. Its arms are stronger. It’s looking at him. He grimaces, and moves to the side, and gasps he glances back up and it’s _still looking at him._

“What’s wrong with you, you miserable baboon?” Missy says, from where she’s tossing a clay sculpture aimlessly between her hands. 

“Ah,” he says weakly. “The clown. Its eyes follow you around the room.”

She snorts. “Sure.”

He moves on. His next perusal seems to be a scene of a coffee plantation, from the smell of it, painted in coffee, and onto a canvas of recycled Starbucks cups. _The environment_ , he thinks to himself, nodding sagely. _Something about consumerism too, probably._

He wanders past a few more pieces, which are largely more of the same, until he reaches it. The star of the room. It’s a giant fountain – as tall as him, and twice as wide – of a full human breast, puthering out milk. Or some milk-looking substance, at least. He dithers between the gender imbalance of British statuary, or perhaps a statement on the oversexualisation of breastfeeding mothers. Definitely something to do with gender, he thinks, tapping his finger at his lips.

Nardole’s musings are interrupted by a loud crash, and he whips his head around sharply. Missy has picked up a large sculpture of a mango, and is thwacking it repeatedly on the table in front of her.

“What are you _doing_? That’s someone’s project!” he objects, as she smashes the bottom of it in. 

“Not anymore!” she cackles, and spins towards him, clutching it in front of her. There’s a manic look in her eye.

“I said _no crimes_ ,” he whimpers. “You said you wanted to see the exhibits!”

“I have seen the exhibits,” she said, “and now I’ve improved this one.”

“How is it improved! You’ve just broken it!”

She grins wildly. “Come here.”

Nardole crosses his arms over his chest. “I will not.”

“Come here,” she says again, “or I will smash some more of the wee _projects_.” She spits this last word out derisively.

Nardole feels a particular brand of despair run through his chest and settle in his gut. He’d known this would happen. He had warned the Doctor against letting her out for this _very reason._ And yet he’d managed to get suckered into her innocent playacting, her impression of a naif, her little gasps whenever she saw the sun and took a breath of fresh air. It was all lies, and she’d been suckering him in. For _this_.

He walks forward, feeling wretched. “What do you want, then,” he says dully once he’s in front of her.

She hands him the mango. “Put this,” she says, “on your head.”

Nardole takes it, blinks. “What?”

“Put it on your head.”

He blinks again. “Why?”

Missy purses her lips at him and sizes him up. “I think it would be funny.”

“You – what?” Nardole didn’t think she had the capacity for humour.

“Just picture yourself!” she tells him. “Wandering around in your silly jacket, with a mango on your head.”

Nardole looks down at the mango in his hands. It would actually probably be quite funny. “But the student,” he starts.

“Oh they would have got a shit grade anyway,” she says. “Mango. Head. Now.”

Of course he relents. What else can he do? 

He turns the mango over so he can see the hole in the bottom. “I used to do cybercrime. I used to fight the Man,” he says morosely, as he puts the mango on. “Now I’m stealing from the youth.” His vision turns completely black and he can feel the heat of his own breath surrounding him, all his other senses dialling up to account for the loss of his vision.

From his front, Missy starts clattering about, making an increasingly concerning amount of noise. She’s definitely bashing something.

From inside the mango, he continues his complaining. “You’ve turned me into a common criminal.”

"You were already a criminal, dearie," Missy says absently, and there’s a whirring noise from behind him. He spins to face it. Which is ridiculous, because he can’t _see_.

“I had plausible deniability before,” he says. “What am I going to do if Fitzgerald sees me walking around in this? Pretend I hadn't noticed?”

“Tell him you're experimenting with wigs.”

“What are you doing, anyway?” he asks, adjusting the mango so that it stands straighter up on his shoulders.

“Aha,” she mutters. Then she tugs him towards her, walks him forward a few steps, and turns him around. Walks away again.

“What are you doing!” he says again, stepping towards where he thinks she is.

“Oi, stay put,” she says, and he steps back again, miffed. “I’m being brilliant, as always.” There’s a snap, almost like – 

“Have you got a camera!” he says, almost offended. Where had that come from?

Missy sniffs. “I have _made_ a camera. Pose.” 

Nardole halfheartedly sticks his hands on his waist, cocking his hip. 

“Perfect,” she says, and hums with satisfaction, and the camera clicks and clicks and clicks. “Now, you’re going to lead me back to the Vault and we are going to have tea.”

“Okay,” Nardole says agreeably. Getting her back in the Vault would be good. With the snap the camera stopped, he makes to remove the mango from his head.

“No.” She’s right in front of him all of a sudden, clasping his wrists. “That stays on.”

Nardole grits his teeth and huffs out a breath. “Fine,” he says. “But you want me to keep wearing it you’ll have to lead me back to the Vault yourself, because I,” and he really wants to stress this point, “ _cannot see_.”

At that, she immediately takes his hand. “Lovely,” she simpers.

Nardole lets her parade him around the grounds, clearly taking the long way back, with little protest. It’s not like he has much choice.

It’s not too bad, anyway. He can’t see anyone looking at him. He can just feel the warm embrace of his breath on his face, and the tight grip of Missy’s hand in his own, tugging him gently through the grass.

*

The Doctor is marking essays, notionally.

More truthfully, he’s spinning around on his chair, occasionally reading a sentence or two and scrawling a derisive comment in the margins in red pen. Someone had told him once that he should mark in pencil so that the students didn’t feel sad when they got their feedback, and ever since he had gone out of his way to get the reddest ink possible. It just felt right.

He snorts at Jeramiah Finkley’s shoddy conclusion and draws a big scowly face at the bottom of the page, tossing the essay onto the steadily growing pile by the side of his feet. He picks up the next one – Marica Fitch, it says at the top of the page – skimming over the first few paragraphs.

Somehow this one’s even worse, and he can feel his brain rotting as he reads it. He glances out of the window idly, putting his pen in his mouth.

He does a double take. What. _What?_

That’s – that person has a mango on their head. 

He peers closer, leaning with his nose almost pressed to the glass of the window. They’re being led by someone else, pulled along by the hand.

Rubbing his eyes, the Doctor sighs. Life on Earth just gets weirder by the decade. He’s half a mind to go out there and see if it’s some new form of alien life having a wander through Bristol University for a lark, but he notices an egregious falsehood in one of his Ms Fitch’s supporting arguments and by the time he’s crossed it out and told her off, the two mysterious figures have gone.

*

The mango now lives on the piano.

Nardole is ensconced in a plush little armchair, while Missy potters around and makes tea. He spots her dosing his cup with a little vial of poison, but doesn’t worry too deeply about it – his latest upgrade had rendered him immune to most Earth toxins. He ponders the mango. It’s balanced delicately at the thin end of the piano, and the edges of the hole he’d had his head in had been carefully sanded down, so that it could stand freely.

“You know,” he calls over to Missy, “Professor Fitzgerald was very annoying about this in the staff meeting.”

“Oh?” she calls back.

“Mm,” he agrees, turning his head to watch her. “He all but blamed me for it.”

She spins round with the tea set in her hands, and places it down, settling into her own armchair. “Do tell.”

Nardole sinks back into the cushions. “He made a quite snotty remark to me about how someone ‘with your stature’ had been spotted with the mango.”

Missy’s nostrils flare. “That’s not proof.”

“I know!” Nardole says. “I told him he was welcome to search my quarters, and that correlation does not equal causation, and that I was a trusted member of the department –”

“What department?”

“– and had been for many years, but he clearly has a grudge.” 

Missy looks at the mango contemplatively. 

Nardole snorts. “He said Emily Mears had cried for three hours in his office about her project,” he goes on. “I dislike him quite a lot.”

“Yes,” Missy says. “You put him on your shitlist, I remember. I want to hear more about the shitlist.”

“No.”

She huffs. “Tell me more about why you hate him then.”

Nardole thinks for a moment. “He has always been quite judgemental about the Doctor’s tenure here. He’s always asking questions about how long he’s worked here, how long he plans on staying – that kind of thing. The Doctor doesn’t notice, of course…” he trails off. 

“Bastard,” Missy hisses. “You know what we have to do, right?”

“Move him up the shitlist and plot a grisly revenge that will take three to five years to come to fruition?” Nardole says hopefully.

“Kill him.”

“No.”

“Beat him up,” Missy says, leaning over the little table that divides their two armchairs. “Make him regret crossing you.”

Nardole inhales the wispy steam from his tea – Assam, nine sugars, a delicate flowered porcelain this time – and ponders. “No,” he says at last. “He would be able to tell that it was us.”

Missy hums at this. “Vandalise his office?”

Taking a careful sip of his tea – definitely poisoned, but nothing he can’t handle – Nardole turns this idea over in his head. It would certainly be satisfying. And no one would get hurt, which was the most important thing. He wondered for a moment if atoning for a life of crime was like weaning yourself off hard drugs. Take smaller, less intense doses until you’re able to live satisfied without any crime at all. 

That’s how he’d done it. Or is doing it, he supposes. A life as the Doctor’s companion often involved breaking and entering, lying, stealing a few bits and bobs. 

“Okay,” he said, feeling content that he’d be able to explain this later if the Doctor asked. He didn’t think he would though.

“Lovely,” Missy says, and stands. Nardole sighs – did it have to be _right now?_ – and chugs the rest of his tea, standing as well and leading her out of the Vault. 

They steal bats from the cricket society.

“Cricket society, honestly,” Nardole mutters. “Who comes to uni and decides to start playing cricket?”

Missy shrugs. “Your Doctor used to like cricket.”

“Mm,” Nardole hums. “They have their meets on Wednesdays and Fridays,” he explains, picking the lock to the storeroom. “So we can borrow these and bring them back later.” He’s holding a bat in front of his face and wondering how they’re going to conceal them on their journey to the Art building when Missy snatches it from his hand and hitches up her skirts.

“What!” he squeaks.

“Oh, grow up,” she bites out. “I’ll strap these to my legs so that no one sees us with them, understand? You have committed crimes before? You know how important it is not to be seen with the murder weapon beforehand?”

Nardole glares at her. “I thought we’d ruled out murder.”

She waves a hand. “Semantics,” she says, and once the bats are secured, lets her skirts fall to the ground again. Nardole eyes her critically. They really do hide everything.

She spots him looking, and gives him a sardonic twirl. “How do I look, dear?”

He grits his teeth. “Fine.”

They walk over to the Art Department, and Nardole is feeling more and more uneasy about this the closer they get. They’re climbing the stairs, and his gut is churning.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” he mumbles, not looking at Missy.

Missy elbows her way into Fitzgerald’s office. “Yes,” she says, voice brusque. “Now take a bat and start smashing things.” Nardole takes a bat.

They smash things. 

It’s quite therapeutic, actually, he thinks, as he gets started on a filing cabinet. It makes some really rewarding noises, and watching it crumple underneath his assault makes him feel quite strong. As he breaks it, Fitzgerald’s files start to spill out, and Nardole suddenly has a delicious, awful idea.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells Missy, and scurries out of the office.

He comes back loaded with inks and glue from the studio next door, and starts his attack on the papers spread over the floor. Missy eyes him for a second, and starts cackling as she sees what he’s doing. 

“This is fun!” she says with a wild voice as she lays into the desk. It’s solid wood, so it’s taking some work, but she’s putting her back into it and Nardole can tell it’s close to snapping in half.

Nardole, who had soaked the pile of paper in ink and coated it in glue, holds back a smile. 

“You can wipe the security footage, right?”

“Oh, easily,” Nardole says. 

“Fantastic,” she says, and starts walking around the room, smashing the glass of every picture frame and art print hung on the walls. Nardole just watches her for a moment, taking in the rosy flush of her cheeks and the dewy sweat on her brow, the wild joy she finds in destruction. He catches himself. What is he _thinking_ , honestly.

The whole point of all of this was to – avoid that part of the Doctor’s request.

To save himself from – that.

Missy catches him staring at her, and raises an eyebrow at him. He jerks his gaze away, but it’s too late.

She lowers her bat, and stands leaning on it, hip cocked out to the side. Her chest is heaving slightly. “That was great,” she says, deceptively light.

“It was okay,” Nardole agrees.

She frowns at him. “What do you usually do for fun?”

“Er,” he says. “Watch telly?”

“Okay,” she says decisively, heaving the bat over her shoulder and aiming one final hit directly into the wall, punching a brutal hole through it. “We can try that next.”

*

The Doctor is furious. Actually, genuinely furious. 

“What the hell were you _doing_?” he says, looking at Nardole’s placid, round face. “Please tell me exactly what you were thinking, because I have listened to you moan at me for years now about how I shouldn’t even _visit_ her! And now you’re taking her on jaunts around campus so that she can vandalise the office of someone you don’t like!”

Nardole sets his jaw and lifts one shoulder in a lopsided shrug.

“I just told you to spend time with her!” the Doctor splutters. “Not, not whatever this was! You _let her out._ ”

“Well I was also there,” Nardole mutters mutinously.

The Doctor stares at him. “That's worse. You understand that's worse, right?”

Nardole just shrugs again.

“Just –” he sighs. “Just, keep her in the Vault, okay? She needs to stay in the Vault.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll deal with Fitzgerald. You just – keep her occupied, somehow.”

At this, Nardole stiffens and visibly grinds his teeth together. “Alright, sir,” he says at last, before standing and leaving the office.

The Doctor blinks. Not even a goodbye. 

*

“The Doctor says I can’t take you outside anymore,” Nardole says dully, returning to the Vault after that disastrous meeting. “But I’ll still visit, if you want,” he offers.

Missy stands beside the piano with her back to him, and says nothing. 

“He found out about Fitzgerald’s office,” he says. “I don’t know – I don’t know how he knew that it was us.”

At this, she turns, slowly. Her face is blank, unreadable. Nardole finds he doesn’t want to look at her. 

“I’ll make tea,” he decides, and bustles over to the kettle. He’s just spooning sugar into his cup when Missy slides up behind him and grips his waist with two hands. This makes him jolt, spilling half the bag of sugar over the counter and into his mug. 

Ignoring her, he squints at it. He’d been aiming for seven spoonfuls, but it’s half full now. That’s probably alright though. He drops in a teabag and hums in satisfaction when he stirs the boiled water through. 

Missy digs her nails into his sides.

“Oi,” Nardole admonishes, and turns around.

She stares at him, and something crosses her face that he’s not seen in a while. It’s – nasty. Dark.

He presses her tea towards her. She doesn’t take it.

He slumps. “What,” he says, defeated, and sets the tea down behind him.

“I’m bored,” she murmurs, and presses a hand against his chest. 

Nardole’s throat tightens. At least he’s had time to prepare for this, he thinks. It’s – better. That they’d spent time together beforehand. Got to know each other.

He swallows. “Did you want…” He trails off, biting his lip and averting his eyes. The ceiling is very interesting actually.

Missy cocks her head. “Want what?” 

Isn’t it obvious what he means? He flicks his gaze to her mouth. Unpainted today. “Want to… er.” He can feel his face going red hot. “‘Make music’?”

There’s a scuffling noise from outside, but Nardole pays it no attention because Missy has a wicked smirk on her face that spells trouble. She steps forward, pressing her chest against his, grabbing his neck. 

“That sounds like a _lovely_ idea!” she exclaims, and pulls him forward, claiming his mouth as her own.

It’s vicious. 

Nardole doesn’t know what else he expected, really, but her mouth is moving fast against his, hot and soft and wet, and it’s all he can do to cling on. She’s nibbling on his lower lip, a sensation he has only a moment to get used to before she bites down, _hard._

“Oi,” he tries to say, but she slides her tongue in as soon as he opens his mouth and it’s immediately muffled. The touch of her tongue to his own is – it’s just an immediate electrifying heat and it pulls a hoarse gasp out of his throat against his will.

This, of course, is when the Doctor walks in. He’s carrying two cups of coffee from the campus shop and Nardole wrenches his head around quickly enough to catch the moment when the Doctor sees them and drops them both to the ground. He tries to wriggle away, but Missy has her arms around his neck and doesn’t let go.

“What –?” the Doctor bites out.

Nardole’s entire brain must have gone on strike, because he doesn’t respond. He gapes at the Doctor, glancing at Missy. She looks exceptionally smug.

“Nardole!” the Doctor manages. “What – what are you doing?”

Nardole splutters. “What you asked me to!” He tugs at Missy’s arms again, unsuccessfully. 

The Doctor shakes his head, wildly. “I didn’t ask you to do this! What are you _talking_ about? What is this?”

“You said –” Nardole says, “You said I had to ‘make music’ with her!”

The Doctor gives him a perplexed look. “Yes?”

Nardole gestures between himself and Missy pointedly. Missy is staring at the Doctor still, but her expression has turned predatory, eyes low and dark. Nardole takes advantage of her distraction to duck underneath her arms and back away. He finds one of the armchairs and plonks himself down in it, breathing heavily.

The Doctor breaks Missy’s gaze. “So if you’re playing music together, where’s your instrument?” 

“Sir!” Nardole protests.

“Do you not –?” he breaks off. “Look. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I can lend you a recorder, if you need one.” 

Nardole, baffled, stares at him for a moment. There’s a dawning sense of dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. “What does that even mean?”

“What do you mean, ‘what does that mean’? What else could it mean!” 

Nardole breathes out slowly through his nose. “I already _have_ a ...recorder,” he says carefully. “And I certainly wouldn’t want one of yours, if I needed another one.”

The Doctor gives him a baffled look. “Where is it then?”

Missy giggles, and the Doctor gives her a sharp look. Nardole is just gaping at him, and after a long, awful moment, pulls himself to his feet. 

“What are you doing now?” the Doctor asks, wary.

Nardole tugs at his belt, feeling something horrible and cold churn in his gut. This isn’t what he thought – any of this would be like. Better than some of his old jobs, he supposes. At least there’s no imminent threat of death. But. He’d thought the Doctor was… well, he supposes it didn’t matter what he’d thought. 

“Showing you my recorder,” he says miserably. His fingers are unbuttoning his trousers when the Doctor leaps forward and grabs his wrists.

“Nardole,” he breathes, “what –? Stop.” He pulls Nardole’s hands up. “Stop,” he says, softly. 

“It seems,” Missy interjects, “that there has been something of a misunderstanding.”

Nardole pulls his wrists away from the Doctor’s grip. “Sir?” he says.

The Doctor isn’t meeting his eyes. The Doctor has, in fact, put his hands over his face. “What exactly did you think I wanted you to do?” he asks. His voice is hoarse.

“Are you not aware that your assistant doubles as an unhappy prostitute?” Missy asks, eyes wide.

The Doctor’s voice cracks, shocked and horrified. “What?”

There’s silence. Nardole chews on the inside of his cheek. “You made it seem,” he gets out, “or, it was my understanding that… that it was my civic duty to offer the prisoner my hot bod, so that she won’t commit terrible crimes in the future.” He tugs his hands together, squeezing his fingers. “I’m sorry if I misunderstood.”

The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut, drags his hands down his face, and mouths, “‘ _Hot bod_ ’.” He draws himself together and pats Nardole’s face. “Nardole,” he starts. “I just meant – playing music. Playing songs, tunes. It wasn’t a metaphor. I just meant music.”

Oh.

“If I implied anything else,” the Doctor continues, “I am deeply sorry.” Nardole squirms in his grip. He’s never heard the Doctor be so earnest about anything.

After a long pause, Nardole mutters, “It’s okay, sir,” looking at the ground. His face is hot again with embarrassment. The Doctor pats Nardole’s hand with his own, and it gets even hotter somehow. He doesn’t want to try to evaluate what that might mean.

Nardole clears his throat. “Please do _not_ tell Bill about this.”

The Doctor grimaces. “No,” he agrees. “I think she might hit me.”

“You probably deserve it,” Missy says.

The Doctor glares at her. “You just want to see me get hit.”

Missy shrugs in agreement. 

Nardole looks up at her. “Why did you kiss me?” he asks. That was the only thing that he still didn’t understand.

She raises a sardonic eyebrow at him. “You asked me to.” And Nardole remembers… making his own allusions. Reaching out to her.

“I suppose I sort of did,” he frowns.

“A comedy of errors, hm?” the Doctor tries. “All of us – equally… misunderstanding each other…” They stare at him. He ploughs on. “All, er, equally at fault, probably…”

Nardole and Missy glance at each other. In unison, they say, “Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Your comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [petercapaldish](http://petercapaldish.tumblr.com/), if you like.
> 
> \--
> 
> Content warnings: this may lean towards a little dubcon for some people. Nardole thinks the Doctor wants him to kiss and 'sacrifice his virtue' to Missy. There's a kiss at the end, but nothing more.


End file.
